Jump to:
- Children's issues
- Politics and the 2002 elections
- Further reading
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Children and Children's Organizations:
This very insighful letter discusses many relevant issues.
Check it out!
The plight of the street children in Central America, and specifically
in Honduras. Press releases about police murders of street
children (1995-2000).
In the square in San Pedro Sula, right across from the McDonalds,
is a man who sells nothing but glue. He sets up a card table
and fills it with the little tubes of solvent-based glue.
That glue is for street children to buy and inhale. It
is made in
and exported from the United States or made by US companies
in Central America. Unlike glues of a similar kind (and brand)
sold in the US, this glue does not contain nausea-inducing
mustard seed. Men like this one can be seen selling glue
to Honduran street children in every major Honduran city.
Read
some media stories.
Check out the Casa Alianza (Covenant House) website for more
information.
back
to top The 2002 elections: By May 2000 the posters were already up and the rocks painted
with political signs. General information on Honduran politics.
The candidates for 2002. Keep up with the news via "Honduras
This Week." back
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Further reading: Honduras, general Eric Llamovitch. Honduras
(Ulysses Travel Guides, 1997) There are several other tourist-type
guides of Honduras. This one
contains maps of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, useful addresses,
and lots of general information about the country. And pictures
of course!
Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall. Cocaine Politics: Drugs,
Armies, and the CIA in Central America (Berkeley: Univ. of
California, 1991). Chapter Three provides a larger history
of the relationship between the US and Honduras from the "Banana
Republic" days to the present. The rest of the book puts
this into the larger Central American context.
Andrew Ross, ed. No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights
of Garment Workers (New York: Verso, 1997). From Kathie Lee
to Disney, everyone is making use of Honduras' Free Trade
Zones to produce goods for the US market. This book tells
you more
than you wanted to know about that, and more important, offers
some suggestions about what you can do to help.
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Volunteering Robert Coles. The Call of Service:
A Witness to Idealism (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1993). A discussion of the various forms
of volunteerism Coles has studied, and a celebration of "service" in
all its forms. Coles describes what he learned from volunteering
everywhere from SNCC to soup kitchens, and speaks bluntly about
the reactions of those who are being "helped" and
the possible pitfalls for volunteers--in addition to the benefits
for everyone. Michael Maren. The Road to Hell:
The Ravaging Effects of Foreign
Aid and International Charity (New York: Simon and Shuster,
1997) A more chilling look at the business of charity from
a former volunteer who served over nineteen years in various
African nations working for several different aid organizations.
Maren touches on some of the same dangers as Coles, but on
a much larger scale. This book isn't about Honduras, but
it should make you think about the long term implications of
every
kind of charitable aid you offer. Janet Poppendieck. Sweat Charity:
Emergency Food Aid and the
End of Entitlement. (NY: Penguin, 1998) Another chilling look
at charity; this time in the United States. Poppendieck describes
the volunteer "industry" that has grown up around
food banks and food pantries, and explores the local and national
implications of our commitment to providing charitable food
aid. Like The Road to Hell, this book is not about Honduras,
but it has direct relevance to the kinds of aid programs we
establish and support at home and abroad, and to the relationship
between behavior and attitude.
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